The International Journal of Forecasting (IJF) receives a large number of submissions every year (nearly 1000 in 2020). Those manuscripts are processed by our editorial board and dedicated reviewers, in order to eventually select the very best papers to be published by the journal, while providing the authors with critical, yet supportive and constructive, feedback for their papers to bring the best of the original ideas to our readers. The IJF strives to publish high-quality papers that covers excellent, topical and timely research.
Out of all those papers that IJF publishes, we aim to put the spot light on these few papers that truly stand out. Therefore, every second year, we award a prize for the best paper published in the International Journal of Forecasting. The prize consists of US$1000 plus an engraved plaque. Besides this best paper award, we usually select 1-2 outstanding paper awards, to be seen as runner-up, in the sense that they do not get prize money, but still get the recognition for the excellent quality of the work they publish. The IJF Best Paper Award to be handed in 2021 covers the period 2018-2019 – we always allow for a delay after the publication period, since it gives the papers time to gain visibility, and for us all to reflect on their quality and relevance.
As the award should be handed out at the time of the International Symposium of Forecasting (ISF 2021) late June 2021, it is now time to go through the process of nominating and selecting those papers. The nomination process is fully open, and anyone may be able to nominate up to three papers. A condition though is that you cannot nominate a paper that you have co-authored yourself. Papers co-authored by one of the editors (Profs. Esther Ruiz, Dick van Dijk, Norman Swanson, Fotios Petropoulos, George Kapetanios, Amir Atiya and Pierre Pinson) are not eligible for the prize. All nominated papers are to be accompanied by a short statement (up to 200 words) from the nominator, explaining why the paper deserves an award.
Based on the nominations, the editors will short-list five top papers, and a vote will be organized for the whole editorial board of the IJF to contribute to the final selection process.
The list of all papers published in the period 2018-2019 and which are eligible can be found at: https://bit.ly/3wz7sXg – as originally extracted from Scopus. The number of citations is there just for indication, and obviously we should not just give best paper awards simply to those papers that were cited the most.
Nominations should be sent to Prof. Pierre Pinson (ppin@dtu.dk), Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Forecasting, by 13 May 2021.